


conceal your dispositions (or, In My Life)

by ginexvra



Series: the art of war (and love) [2]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Gen, Hope that's cool, claude is briefly mentioned, i use my own byleth's name, i'm a sucker for father-daughter jeralt-byleth fic, i'm pretty sure byleth would have ASKED some of this stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 00:55:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21235457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ginexvra/pseuds/ginexvra
Summary: "This has gone on long enough, Father. Why are we here? Why did you let me grow up knowing nothing about the Church? Why didn't you tell me about who you were?"His calm silence infuriates his daughter more, and she plants her palms on the table with the same measured force she used to shut the door. "Father. Answer. Me."Jeralt spins the paper around so the writing faces her: I know you have questions. Not here. Rhea is watching.----(Or, Byleth isn't THAT ignorant, not really - but she can't tolerate her father's secrets.)





	conceal your dispositions (or, In My Life)

**Author's Note:**

> I was thinking that it was impossible to grow up *completely* ignorant of the Church of Seiros - like it's impossible not to know what the Catholic Church is - but I think it would have been more realistic that Byleth was ignorant if she had just been taught that the Church was unimportant and not worthy of her attention.
> 
> I also thought it was impossible that she hadn't asked Jeralt even a single question during their time at the monastery. 
> 
> Here's my take on that. Set somewhere during their first few days at the monastery - definitely before Jeralt's "I don't mind you settling into your life here but don't let your guard down, ever" line.

The door shuts with a deliberate thud behind her. She would never bang, slam, or throw a door, not given as she was to outbursts of emotion, but she had a way about her when her temper was rising that made the air seem dead, like the wind going stale during a gathering storm.

This was something Jeralt knew from the uncountable years of raising her, and he braces himself for the wave of her fury.

Gloriana stalks up to her father’s desk, a torrent of questions sliding off her tongue.

"This has gone on long enough, Father. Why are we here? Why can't I say no to staying here? Why can't _ you _ say no to staying here? Why did you let me grow up knowing nothing about the Church?" She takes a breath to steady herself, the slightest of frowns creasing her brow as she gives voice to her anger. "Why didn't you tell me about who you were?"

Jeralt acknowledges this uncharacteristic talkativeness with a look, puts his quill to a piece of blank parchment, and starts writing.

His calm silence infuriates Gloriana more, and she plants her palms on the table with the same measured force she used to shut the door. _ " _ Father. _ Answer. Me." _

Jeralt spins the paper around so the writing faces her. _ I know you have questions. Not here. Rhea is watching. _

She reads the words once, twice, three times. Rhea. Thinking about the archbishop - the way Jeralt couldn't refuse her, the hungriness behind her eyes whenever she looked at Gloriana, the benevolent voice that sounded too serene to be sincere - makes her want to claw at her skin and rip out whatever the archbishop sees inside her. Gloriana lowers her voice. “What does that woman want with us?” 

Jeralt puts quill to paper again. _Wants to use you. Don’t let her._ He underlines the second sentence so adamantly, he nearly breaks the nib of the quill. 

"What are you talking about?"

Jeralt sighs so deeply his hulking form hunches over the desk, and in that moment, he seems years and years older than he looks.

Gloriana's father is an exceptional warrior and a good-hearted man, but he’s still _ just _ a man. He gets drunk and tells prehistoric jokes and can’t sort his socks to save his life. The hero worship Leonie has for him is unnecessary and frankly, foolish. It's hard to imagine her father being a legendary _ anything _, let alone being a high-ranking captain who has history with such an immensely powerful woman.

And now with a single conversation, that woman has upended her life - disrupted their plans to travel through the Kingdom, uprooted her father's entire mercenary company, and extended an interest in her that feels hair-raisingly disturbing.

She has a right to be upset, and more importantly, she has a right to know who the father she's spent every day of her life with really was.

She waits.

Jeralt speaks in a voice barely above a whisper. “I can't tell you everything now. Not here. But this is why I want you to stay away from her."

He raises his head and looks his daughter straight in the eye. "You were born here at Garreg Mach. Rhea saw something special in you as soon as you were born, and not in a good way. Strange things…" 

“Special - ” Gloriana starts, but Jeralt interrupts her with a tap of his quill on the parchment. _ Not here. _

"I feared for your safety, so I took you and fled. We've been hiding from the Church, and Rhea, ever since."

Gloriana sinks into the chair in front of his desk, the fight going out of her as she cradles this chunk of her missing past in her hands.

Scattered memories of her childhood suddenly click into place. Why her father would steer her away from political conversations. Why she wasn't allowed to know her age. Why he was always so vague about life before they were mercs. One memory bubbles up, more insistent than the others, from back when she was a little girl still too young to be a mercenary and thus had to stay behind in their inns while Jeralt was out on missions. 

* * *

It had been one of the Saints’ days. Everyone in the inn had left to attend the service in the local chapel, and the innkeeper’s wife had kindly asked her on her way out if she had anyone to take her. Gloriana had politely responded that she’d rather wait for her father, and the innkeeper’s family left it at that and departed for the chapel.

Jeralt and his men returned midway through the service. Gloriana met her father in the stable yard and asked if they were going to catch up, since it seemed important to everyone else to go. 

Jeralt had shaken his head. “We don’t believe in their Saints,” he said firmly.

“Why not?”

“We just don’t, kid.”

Gloriana had balked at this. “But doesn’t that make us...different?” The people at the inn had been so excited to take part in the feast. If she and her father didn’t believe in the Saints, did that mean they were missing out on what made those people so happy?

“We don’t have to worship the way everybody else does,” Jeralt explained, unknowingly planting a seed of openminded-ness in his daughter that was going to be incredibly crucial to her decisions - and those affected by them - decades later. “People are allowed to put their faith in different things.”

She had pondered this for a moment, her pliant mind absorbing the concept of freedom of religion as easily as a sponge. “So what do _ we _put our faith in?”

Jeralt had tossed her her training sword. Sweaty and spent as he had been from battle, he still sank into his ready stance and tipped his own blunt, wooden blade at her. He smiles, familiar, comforting, challenging - but also wise. “This is the only thing you can believe in.” 

* * *

"You have a lot of explaining to do," Gloriana says into the silence.

"I know. I'm sorry for all the secrets, kid."

“You thought keeping me away from the Church would stop me being curious about it, and you were right.” She glances at her father, expression quizzical as though they were poring over a map or a chessboard together. “But now I’m at a disadvantage, because I don’t know my enemy, and I hardly know myself.”

Jeralt nods. “We’ll fix that. The first chance we get outside the monastery walls together, I’ll tell you everything I know. And everything I don’t, too.”

“Okay.” Gloriana’s taciturn disposition returns, and he knows he’s off the hook for now.

He smiles, a peace offering. “Okay.”

She smiles back, tiny and barely there. She's not the best with facial expressions, and being here in a school full of exuberant teenagers has highlighted that in the worst way. But this office is the one room here that it doesn't matter. Her father is the only person in the world who has ever had to understand her, and he does.

"Kid,” Jeralt says as she gets up to leave. “This goes without saying, but you can't tell anyone. You can't let on to anybody here that you know. Especially Rhea." 

“I know.”

"And watch out for that Riegan boy," Jeralt adds on her way out. "He keeps looking at you funny. Perhaps I need to arrange a talk with him. Or a spar."

Gloriana whips her head around and pins him with her somber stare. "Dad. Don't you dare. I'm his teacher."

"And don't _ you _ forget it," Jeralt says, pointing his quill in her direction. "Go on now, get."

Get she does. The door is quiet as a whisper as it shuts behind her.

**Author's Note:**

> Today:
> 
> My boyfriend: Did you spend all that time playing Fire Emblem?  
Me: No...I spent all that time writing two Fire Emblem fics…
> 
> This is one of them. Only the need to sleep is stopping me from finishing the other. Thanks for being here for Gloriana and Jeralt! Claude will come back real soon.
> 
> \-----------  
References: 
> 
> conceal your disposition - From Sun Tzu: “Conceal your dispositions, and your condition will remain secret, which leads to victory; show your dispositions, and your condition will become patent, which leads to defeat.”
> 
> In My Life - From Les Miserables, where Cosette confronts Valjean about their past: “In my life, I'm no longer a child and I yearn for the truth that you know of the years, years ago.”


End file.
